Yesterday the United States awoke to the news of a horrific shooting rampage that took place in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater shortly after the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight. The most recent reports confirmed that twelve people were killed and nearly 70 total injured. While these kinds of events are sadly too common in recent US history, the scale of this crime rivals some of the worst massacres in this nation’s history. This weekend, Americans are collectively spending time trying to comprehend just how this kind of horrendous crime could take place. But as much debate over those issues that takes place in the next few weeks, the majority of people will have moved on in a rather short time. Our culture has a generally short attention span, and new stories will overtake headlines sooner than later. Closer to Aurora, though, those who were directly impacted by the tragedy will continue to deal with the overwhelming realities. They will begin to make sense of how their lives are forever changed, and how they will be defined moving forward. (more…)